


Ahsoka and Reaching Out

by Merfilly



Series: Ahsoka's Nightmare [7]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional Baggage, Other, these two idiots are killing me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-10 09:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7840009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was worried, at first, that she might have used him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ahsoka and Reaching Out

She came awake with a feeling of not being in the right place, or… crowded. Yes, she felt crowded. Ahsoka turned her head to find a familiar face on the pillow beside her, and that weight across her middle was his strong arm.

/How did I… did I use… please, Huntress, no…./

She forced her memory to kick in, focusing. As a Jedi, no memory was ever truly lost. She could remember her first years on Shili, after all, and what it was to be a child of the plains, with a strong huntress and hunter for parents. Sometimes, she wonders what it would have been like to tell the Tall/Strong/Warm presence that she knew as Plo Koon that she wanted to stay on Shili. What would be her life now?

She forced that away, corralling her wandering mind to think of the night before. She had given away the secret to Rex, the fact she was certain of Vader's identity. After that, she had wept, and he had held her. She'd slipped into sleep, and after that…

… Rex must have brought her to her cabin to sleep it off. She was still in her robe, the one she'd worn from the shower, and he wasn't missing anything save his boots and blasters.

Good. She hadn't given in and let her emotions lead her down the road she feared to walk with this man. Now, she just needed to get out of the bed and dress.

"'Soka," he murmured at her first attempt to move. It slammed through her in a more visceral way than she'd anticipated, to hear him use the little name, in such a soft voice.

/Stop. Get your emotions under control, kriffing idiot. He's safer with his brothers. He's your brother and friend, not … not what you already walked away from with others./

"Morning, Rex. Thank you for not letting me sleep in my galley again."

"Not sure how you sleep in this bed; hard as a rock." His eyes opened, the dark warmth of them calling to everything she was trying so desperately to evade. "Oh, wait. It's you. Who used to fall asleep wherever you dropped."

"Still do." She rolled more to her side, looking at him with too much etched in her eyes and along her lekku, and she knew she needed to get up, get moving… but then he was raising a hand, thumb lightly swiping a tear away from her eye before she knew it was there.

"Always so sad, even when you put on your brave face. Guess I understand it a bit more, after last night," he told her. He then drew his hand back, as she saw him realize how forward he had been. She could not, would not react to losing the touch. She had to keep him safe, and not cause him any unease by acting on the conflicted knot inside her heart.

"I don't mean to be," she told him. "I have joy, knowing you live." 

That was not the right thing to say, and she knew it the moment the words rang against her montrals. Rather than look at him and see just how they had landed, she rolled to bring herself upright, to rise from the berth.

His hand caught her wrist, stopping her escape, and she could not help but look back and down at him in her bed.

"Ahsoka," he said, his voice clear and strong, all sleep haze gone from his eyes as he looked up at her. "Why do you keep me so far from you? Can't you tell it's not where I want to be?"

"You're my dearest friend, and have been for most of the time I have known you, Rex," she told him softly, half-turning on the edge of the berth. "But I do not want to keep inflicting my knee-jerk reactions to what happened to me on you."

"I don't want that either, Ahsoka," he said firmly, rising up to sit on the bed, closer to her, close enough that his scent and warmth were striking her awareness of him again. "I want to help you work past them, so when you run into a _vod_ that's not one of us three, you don't react on instinct. Good as those are, you fight better when you're thinking."

She half-smiled for that, before twisting a little further to read his eyes, see the lines of his face. "Is that all? Just my Captain trying to make certain I don't get myself killed because I was stupid once and got in over my head?"

The anger that flashed in his eyes, his muscles tensing like he wanted to grab hold and shake her, said many things. But, more than that, the fact he did not react with physicality, and that he frowned, a flicker of sadness replacing the anger, made her knot of emotions start unraveling into a clear, hard mandate on her heart.

"Maybe that's all it's meant to be, Commander." He pulled away and got up off the bed on the far side, keeping his back to her to secure his boots and blasters. For a long moment, Ahsoka didn't move, trying to see the right, best thing to do. Her heart was insistent on one thing, and her head swore she needed to do the other.

In the end, she stood and went to the 'fresher to dress, unwilling to cross the bridge and have it end in flames.

+++

When Ahsoka came out, dressed in her concealing clothing once more, Rex had left her ship, and she could not find it in herself to intrude, not if he had chosen to put the distance back on his own.

She went to lay in a new course, one that would take her closer to the Core, where she could learn more information about Darth Vader, his movements, and all the other things she would need to know to do what had to be done. Let Rex have the peace of his AT-TE and occasional forays for the Rebellion.

Ahsoka was ready to stop being afraid of Vader, of the knot in her mind that was her training bond, and it was far better that she handle this without further complicating things with the one friend she honestly still had.


End file.
